


i'm ready to leap, i'm ready to live

by thiscalamity



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Marvel 616, Secret Avengers, Spider-Woman (Comic), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Things, Aftermath of Violence, F/F, Families of Choice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-30 06:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3927091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thiscalamity/pseuds/thiscalamity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>4 times Natasha broke into Jessica's apartment, and 1 time that Jessica broke into Natasha's.<br/>alternatively titled, "why do you need the key to my apartment, when you have the key to my heart" [lol]</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm ready to leap, i'm ready to live

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to the anon who suggested breaking and entering! 
> 
> title from patd's "ready to go (get me out of my mind)"

1.

Jess pushes her apartment door open with her hip, her arms laden with Chinese take-out. She plans on totally chilling tonight. No crime-fighting, no press stuff, no Avengers business at all. Not even any Carol.

 _Just me, myself, and I._ She thinks.

She takes her time getting ready for her night in once she dumps her food on the kitchen table. She picks out her coziest pajamas, brews a pot of coffee, carefully picks out the best show to marathon on Netflix, one that matches her mood.

“You know what? I'm gonna sleep in tomorrow. You deserve a treat, Jess.”

She smiles to herself, feeling completely pleased with how she's spoiling herself.

Finally, she's done getting ready and she plops onto her couch with an open container of rice and starts her show. Jessica feels her muscles relax for, like, the first time in god knows how long. Actually, she's pretty sure its been at least a few months since she felt this relaxed. Probably her last trip to the spa with Natasha. Yeah, that was it.

After a few episodes of Parks and Rec, Jess is starting to doze off on the couch. Her chin falls forward in her sleepiness, and she catches sight of something on the coffee table she hadn't noticed before. She spares a moment to be confused as to how it got there before it hits her what it is.

“Oh no, oh god no. Nooo.” Jess recognized that damned manila color. An assignment file.

Pouting, she yanks it from the table and flips it open. Maria Hill's crisp, precise handwriting details a pretty generic run-of-the-mill mission that Jessica is supposed to help with...

“Tomorrow?! 6 AM?!” Jessica groans, “I never get to sleep in.”

But then, at the bottom of the description, she sees a note in someone else's handwriting. Nat's.

_We're working this one together. See you bright and early._

And well, that makes Jess smile, butterflies wriggling in her stomach. Maybe it won't be so bad now. She even forgets that she should be kind of irritated that Natasha apparently broke into her apartment to leave the file.

  


2.

When Jessica enters her apartment, the first thing she notices is that the wall she's been working on demolishing seems to have a larger hole in it than she left it this morning.

“What the fuck?” she whispers to herself, wondering if Ben sneaked in again while she was out. Though, she doesn't really know why he would have taken part in the destruction of the wall. He seemed to not really approve.

As she moves closer to the wall to examine the damage, she notices a post it note. She plucks it from the wall and reads it, completely incredulous.

_Had to work out some frustration. Thought I'd help you out at the same time ;) -Nat._

“What the fuck?” Jessica repeats.

She stares at the note for a good minute before she bursts into giggles. The idea of Natasha breaking into her apartment and taking a sledgehammer to her wall was completely absurd, but it's exactly what happened. And apparently Natasha breaking in is something she's just going to have to get used to now.

“I have weird friends.” Jess announces, taking the post it note and sticking it to her refrigerator with a magnet.

 

 

3.

As Jessica is digging her keys out of her bag, she hears a noise inside her apartment. Immediately, her muscles tense and her body freezes. Again, she hears it. Her eyebrows knit in confusion. It was a muffled groan. Thinking that, perhaps, she wasn't going to be in immediate danger if she walked into her apartment, she slowly unlocked and opened the door. In the hallway, a pair of black boots are tossed haphazardly and there are a few droplets of blood. Jess continues to move slowly through the apartment, not knowing what she is going to encounter. She doesn't see anyone in the kitchen or living room area, nor in her bedroom. But the bathroom door is closed partially, and Jess doesn't remember leaving it like that this morning. Creeping forward, she pushes the door open slightly. Slouching against the tub, clutching her hand to her shoulder to presumably put pressure on a wound, is Natasha. Jess flicks on the light and hurries forward towards Nat.

“Oh, my god!” she exclaims, dropping down onto her knees.

Nat flinches at the sudden brightness and then grits her teeth against the pain the movement caused.

“Got shot.”

Natasha's face is pale and pinched, her hair plastered to its sides with sweat. Jessica looks her up and down, checking for other injuries. Despite the gunshot wound, Natasha's bare toes against the stark white bathroom floor is what makes her look the most vulnerable, Jess muses.

“I can see that. Did it go through, or is it still in there?” Jess asks, already crawling towards her sink cabinets that hold her first aid kit.

“Straight in and out. I just couldn't clean it and stitch it by myself.” Natasha answers.

“Not injured enough to break into my apartment, though.” Jessica jokes.

After a moment, Nat continues, voice softer, “I hope it's okay that I came here.”

 _Oh my god. Way to put your foot in your mouth, Jess_ _._ Jessica thinks to herself, internally cringing.

She puts down the peroxide that she's holding, and grabs Natasha's hand – ignoring how her fingers are slippery with blood.

“Of course it's okay. Nat, it's _always_ okay. You need me, you find me. You need a place to crash, you can come here. Moi dom, tvoi dom” Jess throws her a lopsided grin in an attempt to lighten how serious she sounded.

“Well! Let's get you stitched up.” Jess gives Nat's fingers one last squeeze and picks up the peroxide and gauze again.

Jessica cleans the wound as best she can and then sets to work getting a needle and thread ready. With a lighter that she found in her first aid kit, she sterilizes the needle and her tongue pokes out a little as she threads the medical thread through the end of it.

“Need anything to bite down on?” Jessica asks.

For a moment, Natasha looks like she's about to say no, but then she quickly nods and snags a wash cloth from the counter. Once she has it in her mouth, she nods again. Jessica sews slowly, not wanting to make the stitches too big or too far apart. By the time she's finished, Natasha looks even more pale and about ready to fall asleep. Jess swipes clean gauze over the wound one last time to wipe away Nat's blood. Then she stands up, and lifts Natasha into her arms. Nat makes a small noise of protest, but Jessica shushes her.

“There's no way you're going anywhere tonight. Stay here and rest. You can go back to being all stoic in the morning.”

Natasha's lip pouts out slightly, most likely in response to Jessica's “stoic” comment, but turns her face to nuzzle into Jessica's neck – just a little. Jess feels her heart skip a beat and she bites her lip.

Jess lays Nat down on her own bed and moves to go lay down on the couch.

“Where are you going?” Natasha mumbles, startling Jess who was sure that Nat had been asleep.

“I'm not kicking you out of your own bed, Jess. C'mon.” Nat pats the spot next to her.

After a slight moment of hesitation, Jessica crawls into bed next to Natasha, who settles next to Jess right away.

“Thanks, Jess. G'night.” Natasha whispers and presses a sleepy kiss onto Jessica's cheek.

Jess smiles softly.

“No prob, Nat.”

  


4.

The first thing Jessica sees when she walks into her apartment is Natasha sitting on her couch.

“I thought you weren't coming over til later?” she asks, unfazed – finally - at the fact that Natasha seems to like to break in more than she likes to knock on the door. Or call before coming over, for that matter. Jess doesn't really mind, though. Not at all. She likes being met with Natasha when she gets home. It feels domestic and like something she's not allowed to have because it's so _normal_.

“Eh, I was in the neighborhood.” Nat says, walking over to start picking through the bags Jessica is holding, trying to snag the drunken noodles before Jessica can claim dibs on them.

Nat makes a triumphant noise when she finds the correct container and plucks it out of the bag. Only after she removes the container from the bag does she reach up to kiss Jess.

“Finally.” Jess mumbles against Natasha's lips, who rolls her eyes in retaliation.

Jessica snorts and presses a kiss to the tip of Natasha nose before retreating to her room quickly to change into sweats.

When Jess comes back out, she sees that Nat set up all the food on the coffee table and poured glasses of wine. While they eat, they talk about their days, furthering Jessica's domestic fantasy where their lives could actually be normal. In that fantasy, she can pretend that this isn't the first time that she's seen Natasha in 3 weeks because Nat was in Italy. Though, the stories about their days aren't exactly that normal, Jess supposes. She almost got kidnapped and Natasha did just return from a stint of espionage. But, whatever. It's Jessica's fantasy, and she knows that they'll never be completely out of the game, no matter what. It's not a bad thing, necessarily. Righting wrongs, fighting bad guys... it's in Jessica's blood. Nat's too. But they're in it together, and they've got each other's backs. They're family now. And so, Jess shifts a little closer to Natasha, who smiles in response and presses their legs together.

They pass the evening in ease, feet in each other's laps, and they end up sharing the drunken noodles.

 

 

+1.

Perched on the fire escape, Jessica shimmies the window's lock and slides into the apartment. Her duffle bag follows in suit. Liho hisses from where she's seated atop the kitchen counter.

“Shh, Liho! It's me.” Jess whispers, even though she doesn't really need to. She's alone in the apartment, except the cat, and Natasha isn't expected home until tomorrow morning.

Liho starts purring and scurries over to where Jessica is standing, winding in between and around her legs. Jess picks up the cat and moves further into the apartment, making her way to the kitchen to check out Nat's food situation. Spoiler alert: it's abysmal. Not surprising, considering Nat's been away for a few days and she's a little horrible at keeping her cabinets stocked. But still, Jess is glad she stopped at the grocery store on her way over. Liho hops out of her arms, and Jess puts away some fresh fruit she picked up to accompany the food that already exists in Nat's apartment, which can only be described as “rations”.

“Oh, Nat.” Jess says out loud when she encounters an honest-to-god can of spam.

~

Jessica is asleep until she hears the bedroom door creak open. She stays snuggled under the covers, hugging Liho to her chest, but she does make a small noise so that Nat knows she's there.

“This is a nice surprise.” Nat whispers, crawling into bed next to Jess.

Jess doesn't even bother opening her eyes, just smiles and then purses her lips. Nat snorts, but kisses her anyways.

“I broke into _your_ apartment this time.”

“Mmmm. Any particular reason?” Nat asks.

“Had to keep Liho company. She gets lonely.” comes Jessica's sleepy reply.

Natasha chuckles.

“Only Liho?”

Jess finally opens her eyes, just a little, to glare halfheartedly at Natasha.

“Maybe me too.” she finally relents, closing her eyes again.

Natasha chuckles again.

“Missed you.” Nat says quietly, searching for Jessica's fingers under the covers.

“You too. G'night.” Jess breathes.

And as she's falling back into sleep, she feels Nat squeeze her fingers.

The moment is ruined, of course, by Liho, who has decided she's done cuddling and uses Natasha's face as a launching pad.

“Liho!” Nat shouts.

Jess bursts into laughter.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> "moi dom, tvoi dom" is the phonetically spelled russian for "my home is your home". i spelt it phonetically since not everyone knows how to pronounce cyrillic letters and i included it since now we know for certain that jess speaks russian thanks to secret avengers #15. also since i'm studying russian, i use any excuse to add it anywhere


End file.
